


A Century of Christmas

by CaptainHoney



Series: How Long the Night [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Domestic, I'll update the tags as I go, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, both the winter soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 15:03:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9077923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainHoney/pseuds/CaptainHoney
Summary: A handful of Christmases over the long near-century of Steve and Bucky's lives. The first chapter can be read on its own as a pre-serum one-shot, but otherwise this story follows the arc of How Long the Night.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a belated Christmas present that I wanted to finish before Christmas but unfortunately work/life interfered. But here it is now! If you haven't read my work How Long the Night you can still read the first chapter, but beyond that you'll probably get a bit confused. 
> 
> No content warnings for this chapter but I'll update as I go (I intend to keep it fluffy but I also Love to Suffer). As always if you'd like to know if any triggers are present, hmu.

Sleet turns the sidewalks into a muddy, dangerous mess. It seeps through boots and stains trouser legs, twists ankles and sends buggies careening into storefronts. The icy rain gives way to something resembling snow for a few hours here and there before turning again to water so cold it burns. The damp burrows through layers of clothing, turning cheeks blue and teeth to chattering and settling in Steve’s lungs.

Bucky secretes home rags from the garage and used them to plug up the gaps around the windows and doors. He wraps Steve in his best wool coat – _It’s not that cold out Stevie, I swear, I’ll be fine, you need to keep your chest warm, and besides, I’d like to see you stop me leaving it here, so one of us may as well use it_ – and drags the blankets from his bed and piles them onto Steve’s. Big George has him working right up until Christmas Eve, and it kills him not to be home all the time. Steve makes him bring work home; he sits up in bed, wrapped in Bucky’s thick blue coat, and works on the accounts between coughing fits that shake his body like a freight train passing a tenement.

Some nights Bucky drags his feet coming home, and hates himself for it. The sight of Steve lying there, glassy-eyed and hollowed out, makes a cavernous ache in his belly below the usual crushing pain of want in his chest. So he goes to a bar and nurses a beer or a whiskey for an hour or two and tries to think of anything else. Finally one thought will overtake him and he sprints home again: _what if he died? What if he’s lying there, dead as a dodo, while I’m sitting here like a jerk having a good time?_ Then he walks slowly up the steps to their apartment, whistling ‘White Christmas’ so Steve will hear him coming, and he walks in and there he is, waiting, eyes fever-bright and over-eager.

Most nights he races home immediately, grabbing an evening edition of the paper and, if he had the money, something special like a new secondhand paperback or a paper cone full of roasted chestnuts. He makes soup and Steve chatters away like he isn’t even sick. Then they lie in bed, close together for warmth, and he reads Steve a book or bits of the paper. Sometimes he describes things he’d seen that day and Steve tries to draw them: Big George hanging paper stars around the garage, the Christmas display at Gimbel’s in Manhattan, the woman feeding pieces of gingerbread to her toy poodle. Steve drifts off and Bucky spends half the night lying awake, listening to make sure he hasn’t stop breathing.

It was three days before Christmas. Steve had been sick for almost a month, but the past couple of days he had been looking better. He’d seemed agitated, and Bucky knew that when Steve had a bone to pick, he was doing ok. He’d gone for a drink with a couple of fellas from work, and was racing home again, much later than he’d promised. He rounds the corner onto their street and there’s a little blonde head poking out the window, squinting down at him.

‘What are you doing, you idiot?’ Bucky roars, waving his arms. ‘Get back inside _now_!’

The head disappears and Bucky pounds up the steps, wrenching the door open and slamming it behind him.

‘Hey, Buck,’ Steve says sheepishly.

‘What’s the big idea, pal?’ Bucky stomps over to him, tracking mud across the floor. ‘You don’t wanna get better or something?’

‘I just was wondering where you were, is all.’ Steve shrugs, narrow shoulders barely moving the thick fabric of Bucky’s coat.

‘Yeah? You got something important to tell me, or are you just a moron?’ Steve’s face crumples and Bucky digs in, because apparently he really hates himself today. ‘I don’t know why I bother lookin’ after you when you’re clearly lookin’ to off yerself.’

‘There’s no need to get so sore about it,’ he growls at his feet, ears going red. ‘You’re being a real jerk.’

‘Yeah? What’re you gonna do about it?’ Bucky growls back, ‘You can barely stand up, let along swing a punch.’

Bucky discovers he is mistaken. His ear is ringing and Steve is wheezing and shaking his fist.

‘You got a head like a boulder,’ he whines.

‘You hit me,’ he replies, incredulous.

‘You were being a jerk,’ Steve replies, then makes his way shakily to a chair. ‘You shouldn’t provoke the ill.’

‘Yeah? Where’s you learn that one?’ Bucky jiggles a finger in his smarting ear. ‘I don’t remember that bein’ one of the Commandments.’

‘’S common sense,’ he says, then coughs violently.

‘You ok, Stevie?’ Bucky asks, dropping into a crouch in front of him. ‘I know I was bein’ a jerk, but you really shouldn’t go exertin’ yourself.’

Steve gives him a withering look worthy of Sister O’Neill. ‘You deserved it, pal.’

‘Sure, alright. You gonna tell me why you were really hanging out the window?’ He tries for a smile. ‘You got a girl in here you don’t want me knowing about?’

He makes a show of checking in the cupboards. Steve snorts, but his face and ears are doing some kind of weird splotchy thing that is somewhere between embarrassment pink and anger red.

‘I did actually have something I wanted to talk about,’ he says quietly to his shoes.

‘Yeah?’

‘I don’t know if- I think I should just forget about it.’ He pulls Bucky’s coat self-consciously around himself. He looks very much like he would like to forget about it.

‘Hell naw, pal, you’re not keepin’ me in suspense like that.’ He crouches down again and pulls the coat gently away from Steve’s face. ‘Give it to me straight, pal. Did you break all my stuff?’

Steve’s mouth does a strange little twist and he looks like he wants to crawl inside a dark hole somewhere far away. Then his brows pull together and his jaw sets in that patented Steve Rogers Look of Seriousness and Determination and he places a delicate hand on Bucky’s cheek. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and his eyes go wide. His nose wrinkles up. He shakes his head slightly. Then he sneezes in Bucky’s face.

Bucky jerks back, making disgusted noises, as Steve sneezes repeatedly. The sneezes are replaced by a coughing fit until he is reduced to a wheezing, oozing ball.

‘Alright, pal, that’s enough excitement for one day,’ Bucky sighs. He carries Steve to the bed, despite his protests, and bundles him up tightly. ‘You’re gonna make me go grey before my time, you know that?’

By some miracle, Steve stays in bed and shuts up for the next couple of days. He doesn’t even try to make Bucky bring him any work to do. He does, however, retain an expression on his face that is half panic and half like he’s working on a particularly difficult math problem.

It’s late on Christmas Eve and Steve has just managed to drift off to sleep when his eyes snap open and he sits bolt upright. He hasn’t gotten Bucky a present. He crawls out of bed, careful not to disturb Bucky, who got home so exhausted that he didn’t even wash the axle grease off his face before falling asleep. It’s almost midnight, and the world is silent outside the window.

Steve lights a candle and shuffles around the apartment, trying to think of something appropriate. He hasn’t left the house in weeks, there’s no time, he’s the biggest _ceann cac_ who ever lived… finally his eyes settle on the little cardboard and ribbon portfolio that Bucky made for him for his birthday. Setting the candle down, he flips through the drawings, looking for something Bucky would like and that he hasn’t seen.

Bucky swirls through his head like ink in water. An idea forms, cobbled together from the aborted conversation of a few days ago and his current desperation. He pads over to the box where he keeps his art supplies, pulls out the piece of pipe he keeps right at the bottom. Tightly rolled up in the tube is a sheaf of drawings he’s never let anyone see: political cartoons, nightmares, some dirty stuff. A sketch of his ma just before she died, looking hollowed in a hospital bed. And Bucky.

He’s done plenty of other portraits of him; it would be weird if he hadn’t, them being best friends and all. But these ones are different. These ones are honest.

He selects one, puts the others back in their secret hiding place. He rolls it up, ties it with ribbon he finds in a drawer. Then he writes a note:

_Bucky,_

_I want to be truthful and open with you, about what you mean, but I’ve never been much good with words._

_Sorry I sneezed on you. This is what I was trying to say._

_Merry Christmas._

_~~Love~~ Steve ~~~~_

He puts the present under their little stick of a tree and crawls back into bed. He stares at the ceiling, heart thumping, until the sun crawls across the room and Bucky stirs beside him.

Bucky pretends not to notice the roll of paper with the bow on it that has mysteriously appeared under the tree. It’s difficult; he’s always been terrible at waiting to open presents. If Steve’s done him a drawing, it could be of anything. It’s just as likely to be a dirty picture as it is to be of Coney Island (while Steve now denies it, they once had a small racket going where boys at school would pay them a buck for a drawing that Steve would carefully copy from Bucky’s dad’s set of dirty playing cards. They were both almost suspended when they were found out, but it was worth it to be able to split the money and use it to buy candy for themselves or flowers for Steve’s ma or Bucky’s sisters).

Finally they’ve eaten breakfast and Bucky tosses Steve his present. He grins wide when he unwraps it, peeling off his dirty, holey socks and pulling the new ones on.

‘Gee, Buck, these are swell. They’re so thick my toes are practically sweatin’,’ he says, kicking his feet in the air.

‘That’s a real nice mental image, pal,’ Bucky says, snorting and pulling a face. ‘Can I open mine now?’

‘Uh… yeah. Yeah, sure.’ Steve licks his lips like he’s nervous, but his face is getting that Serious and Determined thing going again.

Bucky reads the note with raised eyebrows. He slides the bow off and unrolls the drawing. Whatever witty comment he was going to make dies on his lips and his brow furrows with confusion. The drawing is of him, but not the way Steve usually does it, like a caricature. He remembers when the drawing must have happened: they were lying on the fire escape at sunset, drinking beers and sweating. Steve said he was sketching the skyline, but he kept stealing furtive looks at Bucky. He’d been real red in the face, and Bucky kept telling him to go inside and drink some water. When he’d finished the drawing he’d looked at it like it was going to spontaneously combust and refused to show it to him.

The drawing makes him look beautiful. He’s half shadow, half glowing with light, dressed just in his briefs and undershirt, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his muscles. His mouth is on the neck of the beer bottle in a way that is surely much more erotic than it was it real life.

Bucky realises he’s been staring at the picture in silence for a very long time. He looks up and sees Steve staring at him, jaw all set and fists balled like he’s ready for a fight. Bucky swallows hard and puts the drawing down on the table. It springs back into a tight roll and they both flinch.

‘Where are you going?’ Steve asks in a strangled voice and Bucky realises he’s started heading for the door. He pauses, hands shaking. ‘At least take your coat.’

Steve shrugs out of Bucky’s coat, the one he’s been wearing for weeks, and Bucky puts it on. Then he walks out the door and down the steps and into the street.

He’s halfway to the Brooklyn Bridge before a coherent thought manages to make its way into his brain.   _I was probably imagining things_ , he thinks. _You’ve got a case of full-blown narcissism and decided that means Steve’s, what? In love with you? That’s ridiculous_.

The note, though.

He growls in frustration and swings his arms like he’s going into a boxing ring, which startles a group of carollers. He mumbles an apology and starts jogging away, then running, then he’s sprinting through the icy streets. He skids on a half-frozen puddle and goes careening into a bush, almost breaking his neck. Laughing, he pulls himself out of the shrub, picking leaves out of his hair.

‘Are you quite alright, young man?’ asks an old woman.

‘I think he might love me,’ he replies, flinging his arms wide.

‘Who, dear?’

‘Oh, y’know, God. Santa Claus.’ Bucky grins. He knows he probably looks quite demented.

‘Do you need some help, dear?’ the woman waves at a police officer and Bucky walks away at a brisk pace.

It takes him a little while to figure out where he’s ended up; he got turned around somehow on his run, and isn’t as close to the bridge as he thought. He wanders into a park and sits. The bench is wet, and the water soaks through his trousers until his ass is soggy and he’s covered in goosebumps.

 _What the hell. Is happening_. He thinks back to a few days ago, when Steve put his hand on Bucky’s cheek. His fingers had been cold, and they’d trembled a little. It had been so unexpected, so welcome. He thinks of all the nights lying next to Steve when he was sick, hating himself for being happy that he had an excuse to touch him. He thinks about coming home to Steve, who was always so happy to see him, and he was so happy to see Steve. He thinks about those hands, the way he thinks about them in the dead of night when he’s all alone, those slender fingers clasped around his neck, tangled in his hair, rubbing his chest, tugging at his belt.

‘James Buchanan Barnes, you pull yourself together right now,’ he whispers sternly. _You just saw what you wanted to see_.

Bucky gets up and starts walking again, not paying the direction much mind. He hears music and finds himself outside a jazz club he’s been to a few times. The doorman greets him with a bellow and he strolls inside.

‘Hey, man, Merry Christmas. What’re you having?’

‘Something that’ll get rid of this feeling.’

‘I know just the thing, brother.’ The bartender pours him a big slug of something brown and he knocks it back and holds his glass out for another. ‘Girl trouble?’

‘I wish,’ he snorts, then slips out with, ‘The trouble is it’s _not_ a girl.’

The bartender laughs softly. ‘I know about that, too.’

‘Yeah?’ he knocks his drink back. ‘Well what the hell am I supposed to do about it, then?’

‘Drink more. But not too much.’ He pours another. ‘That’s my professional opinion.’

‘Thanks, pal, you’re a real help.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m working on Christmas day.’ The bartender shrugs. ‘That’s the best you’re gonna get.’

Bucky chews on that a little. _The best I’m gonna get. Better than I’ll ever deserve_. He throws some notes down on the bar and wanders around the dance floor for a bit. A few girls try and catch his eye and he tries to get caught, but he can’t stop thinking about Steve. Little Stevie, standing there ready for a fight, looking like his heart was breaking, making sure he had his coat when he just walked out of there like the biggest asshole in the world. Steve, who would fight the whole damn world if he thought it would makes things fairer. Who looked at him sweating like a pig in his johns and saw something beautiful.

Bucky laughs, a harsh bark of a sound, startling some dancers.

‘Can I bum a cigarette?’ he growls at them.

He prowls to the back door, blowing clouds of smoke at people who give him dirty looks and part and seal back up behind him. There’s a couple necking in the doorway, letting cold air in, but it comes as a relief after the crush of bodies inside. They break apart when he comes up behind them.

‘Sorry, pal,’ the man slurs, ‘’s just, there’s mistletoe.’

Bucky looks up at the cluster of white berries hanging into middle of the doorframe. The booze pools in his belly and makes him feel wicked and buzzed. He thinks about Steve’s mouth on a bottle of beer.

‘Hey, the hell you doin’, man?’ the guy yells as he jumps and grabs the mistletoe and shoulders his way past.

‘Something really stupid!’ he calls over his shoulder as he starts running.

‘Hey!’

He can hear feet pounding after him, blood pounding in his ears, heart pounding in his chest. It sounds like STEVEsteveSTEVEsteveSTEVEsteve.

By the time he makes it back to their street in Vinegar Hill his chest is screaming and his breath is ragged as Steve’s. He has a sobering moment where his thinks maybe Steve will be so sore at him that he might not even open the door, so he climbs up the fire escape.

He can see Steve pacing through the window. There’s a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the table, pinning the drawing flat. Steve keep pausing to stare at it with a stricken expression.

Bucky slides the window open and climbs into the apartment. Steve jumps a foot in the air and honest-to-goodness _shrieks_ with surprise. He clutches his chest like an old woman who’s seen someone sinning.

‘Hey.’

‘”Hey”?’ Steve repeats incredulously. ‘I thought- I thought you were never coming back.’

‘Look,’ Bucky says, holding out the mistletoe. Steve stares at it blankly. He holds it in the air above their heads. ‘Stevie, look.’

Steve is looking at Bucky like maybe he has grown two heads. He pats his shoulder surreptitiously with his free hand. The run has sobered him up, and he is beginning to think he really has misjudged the situation. _Shit_. ‘It’s mistletoe, Steve.’

Steve is still looking at him with that confused, faintly appalled expression. The end of his nose is pink and there are two perfect red circles on his cheeks, the effects of the whiskey. He looks so nice, all goofy and serious, and he’s so far away and Bucky just wants to touch him and finally he just goes sort of wobbly and says, ‘Aw, to hell with it,’ and wraps his arm around Steve’s waist.

He mashes their faces together and it’s sloppy and awkward and he has to pull back a little and try and do it properly with actual puckering and everything. He feels Steve shift and thinks he’s pulling away but then he realises he’s standing on his tiptoes, putting his arms around Bucky’s neck just the way he’s thought about so many times. He drops the mistletoe and picks Steve up, just lifts him and holds him under the thighs and kisses like he’s some chump who’s never kissed anyone before in his goddamn life.

He sits Steve on the kitchen table and pushes himself between his thighs. They’re tugging at each other’s clothes and kissing sloppily and Steve _giggles_ like he’s a goddamn nine-year-old. That makes Bucky start laughing and then they’re laughing into each other’s mouths and they almost have to stop until Steve gets his hands under Bucky’s shirt. His fingers trace the top of his hip and slips under his waistband and Bucky makes an extremely undignified noise and shudders. Steve gets a wicked look in his eye and slides his hand further into Bucky’s pants. Bucky braces himself against the table and knocks over the bottle of bourbon.

‘Aw hell, shit, the drawing,’ he cries, breaking away and trying to rescue to picture. It’s a soggy mess. ‘I’m sorry, Stevie.’

‘It’s ok.’ Steve grabs a cloth and starts wiping up the spill. ‘Anyway, it’s your present.’

‘Yeah.’ Bucky pouts. ‘I ruined my present.’

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ Steve says with a sly expression.

‘Yeah? How’re you planning to do that?’

Steve gets on his knees.

‘Stevie…’ Bucky swallows. ‘you don’t hafta…’

‘I want to,’ he replies softly, running his hands up Bucky’s thighs. ‘I really, really want to.’

‘Merry Christmas,’ Bucky says in a strangled voice as Steve unbuttons his fly.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, pals. Hopefully I'll get this whole thing up and finished by the end of the week so we're not too far past Chrissie. Comments make a lovely Christmas present!
> 
> The events of this chapter are referenced in chapter two of How Long the Night: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8645563/chapters/19901887


End file.
